After a great deal of research and measuring, the 4mm scale (OO gauge) NMS-5 BR blue era Scottish Region transfer sheet is here! There was a great deal of double checking on various logo sizes and careful checking against the real thing. It seem an age since research commenced to put this sheet together. I am grateful for the assistance of the folks that inhabit the diesel shed (SRPS Diesel Group) at the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway for allowing me access to their precious charges as part of the research process.

The SRPS diesel shed on the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway, one important source of information used to develop sheet NMS-5.

The transfers are printed as high quality scale water slide transfers by MICROSCALE, the leading supplier of transfers in the USA. The sheet is for 4mm scale OO gauge BR Scottish Region blue and grey era locomotives together with heritage repaints in the same livery and later sector liveries that were adorned with Scottish depot logos such as the Eastfield depot ‘Westie’.

The sheet is designed to be a renumbering pack for ready to run models where repainting over an already accurate and well-applied livery just to change the models identity would seem such a waste. We took the opportunity to add a few extra livery elements to it so to offer added value and to enable those modellers repainting their models to be able to use basically a single sheet such as the various Scottish Region depot logos. The sheet includes numbers – lots of them – double arrows, electrification warning notices and a good number of depot logos.

The black Highland Rail stag logos are designed to be put over a yellow back ground. A yellow back ground was not done for this logo to keep costs down by reducing the number of colours to be printed.

Given the sheer number of elements, numbers, logos etc on this sheet, it represents tremendous value for money compared to other transfers. The aim is to be as fair as possible with the sheets we design to ensure you have plenty of livery details to work with and that if you make a mess of applying a logo, there’s plenty more on the sheet! It is the perfect partner to sheet NMS-1.

Sheet size is 135mm by 115mm.

So what is next? Sheet NMS-6 is in early preparation and will consist of early BR ‘D’ numbers as well as the pre-TOPS BR blue ‘D’ numbers together with the usual pile of logos etc to help you get the most from the sheet without having to spend too much money!

Meanwhile, here’s some more views of the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway! Look out for its diesel gala dates.

A little snow and ice is not enough to put Sarah and I off taking a low level walk in the Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve. The walk into the Coire Ardair along a well-defined path up to the crags of the mountain itself was the objective – nothing too long given the short daylight hours of January and dull conditions which would mean dusk would be early.

The area is being slowly reforested with native tree species, linking up fragments of ancient woodland and individual trees of considerable age, despite their small size. The gnarled trunks and coverings of moss and lichen are indicators to how long thees birch trees have coped with the harsh mountain climate.

The Munro from which the nature reserve gets its name is behind Sarah in the image above, together with Stob Poite – perhaps one of the most unremarkable Munros I have climbed.

Snow or not – the landscape is breath taking, even on the first day of the year, with winter conditions dominating.

Sron a Choire in the Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve. The summit of Creag Meagaidh is behind this top.

Welcome to OMWB (On My Work Bench). I will be blogging about my latest projects and other happenings in the world of model railways and my life in general.
Some non-railway subjects may creep in: the daily antics of our four cats, renewable energy, gardening, travel, life in the Scottish Highlands and many of the other things that make up the work bench of life.